8 x 9 IN / 20.3 x 22.9 CM
36 Pages, 30 Plates
Softcover, Text in English
ISBN-13: 978-1-7335212-5-3
Edition of 100
 
 
alternative normative 
 
As an early member of the Arab Image Foundation,  and already an accomplished photographer, Lucien Samaha had access to the archive’s collections. Pursuant to the publication of Mapping Sitting by Walid Raad and Akram Zaatari, he decided to take some of the material they had published “as is” and expand on them. For the purpose of realigning the various portraits so that the eyes would fall in the same place within the frame,  he accidentally discovered new characters being formed through the transparent layers in Photoshop.  As usual with many of his projects, after making a dozen or so, he set the series aside, and ten years later came back to revisit it and decided to create not only composite characters, but couples and groups. It was only after he felt that he had finished with the lot at his disposal, that the images began to inspire him with their stories.
 
The fact that the characters were unique if not quixotic, the direction of the stories took a strange turn, but in fact remained quite autobiographical in many, and from real experiences in others.
 
About the Author
 
Born in Beirut in 1958, Samaha has been photographing his life since he took one of the first photography courses ever offered in a High School Art curriculum in the US in 1975. Photography has been Samaha’s companion throughout his many careers, including that of a Flight Attendant for TWA, a Marketing Manager for Eastman Kodak Company, (where he had the distinction of being the first digital photographer ever), and a world famous DJ on the 107th floor of the World Trade Center.
 
He considers himself a ‘post-conceptualist’ artist where he relishes the adventure of photographing and gathering materials from the real world and then finds inspiration from them in a finished project.
 
He is currently consolidating his archive of over two million visual assets. He has shown at the Museum for Modern Art in Frankfurt Germany, and was a Nam Jun Paik Award Finalist in 2004 in Germany, among others.
 
 
8” x10” archival pigment prints come stamped and numbered with a certificate of authenticity.